Aero for Traders
A short guide to trading on Aero: how swaps work, what they cost, how trading across networks works, and what to check before confirming.
Getting started
What is Aero?
Aero is an onchain exchange. Trades execute against liquidity pools rather than against another person's order, so there is no order book and no counterparty to match with. Traders get depth from pools that liquidity providers supply, and pricing that adjusts with each trade.
How does trading on Aero work?
Connect a wallet, select the token to sell and the token to buy, review the quote, and confirm. Aero is non-custodial, so there is no account to fund and no deposit step. Tokens stay in the wallet until a swap executes, and they settle back to that wallet.
Which networks does Aero support?
At launch, Aero runs on Arbitrum, Arc, Base, Ethereum Mainnet, Ink, OP Mainnet, and Robinhood Chain. The app shows the current list. A single trade does not have to stay on one network because Metaswaps can source liquidity across them.
Which wallets work with Aero?
Any major Ethereum-compatible wallet, including browser extension wallets, mobile wallets connected over WalletConnect, and hardware wallets. Note that Aero is non-custodial, which means it has no control over your wallet or the funds in that wallet. Please do your own research on which wallet provider you trust with your funds.
Trading mechanics
What is the difference between price impact and slippage?
They are two different things and both appear before a trade is confirmed.
Price impact is the price change caused by the trade's own size relative to the pool's depth. It is predictable from the trade size: a large trade against a shallow pool moves the price more than a small one.
Slippage is the difference between the price quoted before the swap and the price it actually executes at. It comes from the market moving, or other transactions landing first, in the interval between quote and execution.
The slippage tolerance caps how much adverse movement is acceptable. If the price would move past it, the swap is canceled instead of filling at a worse rate.
What fees do traders pay?
A swap fee, charged per trade and set by the pool. Slipstream pools use dynamic fees rather than one flat rate, so the fee responds to conditions instead of staying fixed. Basic Pools use a static fee set by the pool's fee module. Gas is also charged per trade by the network the trade occurs on. The quote shows the fee and gas before confirmation.
What are dynamic fees?
A fee that adjusts as conditions change instead of sitting at a fixed number. It has two parts: a base fee that scales with the trade's normalized price impact, and a separate volatility surcharge.
The purpose is to compensate liquidity providers for the risk they carry during volatile stretches. For traders, it means fees are lower in calm markets than a single flat rate would be, and higher when volatility makes providing liquidity riskier.
Can price impact be checked before trading?
Yes. The quote shows the expected output, price impact, and fees before anything is signed. Reducing the trade size, or splitting it, lowers the price impact.
Trading across networks
What is Metaswaps?
Metaswaps combines bridging, aggregation, and trading into one interface, so a token on one network can be swapped for a token on another in a single transaction. There is no separate bridge step and no second transaction to sign on the destination.
Metaswaps runs on Metalane, Aero's own interoperability layer, and the trade executes in Aero pools rather than being handed off to a third-party venue.
Does a cross-network swap need gas on the destination network?
No. Gas is abstracted, so the cost is paid in the source token. Holding native gas on every network a trade touches is not required, which removes the most common reason cross-network transactions fail.
What does a cross-network swap cost?
The quote covers everything: swap fees, gas, and the cost of moving value across networks, presented as one number before confirmation.
How is a cross-network swap protected from front-running?
The destination action is committed as a hash on the origin network and revealed on the destination, so it is not visible to be front-run in between.
Rewards and incentives
Do traders earn rewards for trading?
No. Aero does not pay AERO Rewards for executing swaps. AERO Rewards go to eligible liquidity deposits, and Exchange Revenue goes to Token Operators. A trader who wants to earn from the protocol can provide liquidity or stake AERO to become a Token Operator.
How do AERO Rewards affect traders?
Indirectly. Token Operators direct AERO Rewards to pools, those rewards attract liquidity providers, and more liquidity in a pool means more depth. More depth means less price impact on the same trade size. Pools that receive sustained AERO Rewards tend to be the ones with the best execution.
Do aggregators and high-volume traders get different pricing?
They can. Aero can apply negotiated fee discounts to specific addresses, which is how aggregators and high-volume routing partners are handled. When a trade arrives through an aggregator, the price shown reflects whatever terms that aggregator has.
MEV and trade protection
What is MEV capture?
MEV is the profit that bots can extract from the ordering of transactions around a pool. On most exchanges that value leaves the system entirely, going to searchers and block builders. Aero captures a portion of it inside the AMM through a priority-fee tax on high-priority transactions, and that value accrues as pool fees rather than leaving.
For an ordinary trader the effect is indirect: the pool retains value that would otherwise be extracted, which supports the depth the trader is executing against.
Security and best practices
Is trading activity private?
No. Every transaction is recorded onchain and is publicly visible, including the wallet address and its full history, which anyone can view through a block explorer.
How can a trader avoid malicious tokens?
Verify the token's contract address from a source the project controls before trading, rather than trusting a name or symbol, since either can be duplicated. Aero surfaces registry information for listed tokens, which is a useful signal but not a substitute for checking. Treat a token with no meaningful liquidity, or one that cannot be sold after buying, as a red flag.
Can a trade be reversed?
No. Once a transaction is confirmed onchain it is final. Amounts and token addresses need checking before signing, not after.
Gas fees
What are gas fees and why do they apply?
Gas pays the network for processing a transaction. It goes to the network, not to Aero, and it varies with how congested that network is. Different networks have very different gas costs, which is why the same swap can cost far more on one than another.
Are gas fees part of Aero's fees?
No. Gas and Aero's swap fee are separate. The swap fee is distributed according to the pool's reward structure, and gas goes to the network.
Troubleshooting
Why did a swap fail?
The common causes are price movement past the slippage tolerance, insufficient balance for the trade plus gas, a transaction that sat long enough to expire, or a pool too shallow for the trade size. Re-quoting, and reducing the size, resolves most of these.
Why has a transaction been pending for a long time?
Usually gas priced too low for current network conditions. Most wallets can speed up or cancel a pending transaction. The transaction hash can be tracked on a block explorer in the meantime.
Why will a wallet not connect?
Most often the wallet is on a different network than the one selected in the app, or a browser extension needs a refresh. Switching networks in the wallet, reloading the page, or connecting over WalletConnect from a mobile wallet clears nearly all connection problems.
Why does the quote keep changing?
Quotes update as the pool state changes, because other trades are executing against the same liquidity and dynamic fees respond to conditions. This is expected. The slippage tolerance is what protects against the price moving between the quote and execution.